SHAMBHALA SUN JULY 2008
44
life, lying on his deathbed, vulnerable, open, with noth-
ing to hide. Or we can simply see him as a fellow way-
farer, struggling with his burdens, wanting happiness
and dignity. Beneath the fears and needs, the aggression
and pain, whoever we encounter is a being who, like us,
has the tremendous potential for understanding and
compassion, whose goodness is there to be touched.
We can perhaps most easily admire the human
spirit when it shines in the world’s great moral leaders.
We see an unshakable compassion in the Nobel Peace
Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains steadfast
and loving in spite of her long years of house arrest
in Burma. We remember how former South African
president Nelson Mandela walked out of prison with a
gracious spirit of courage and dignity that was unbent
by twenty-seven years of torture and hardship. But the
same spirit also beams from healthy children every-
where. Their joy and natural beauty can reawaken
us to our buddhanature. They remind us that we are
born with this shining spirit.
So why, in Western psychology, have we been so fo-
cused on the dark side of human nature? Even before
Freud, Western psychology was based on a medical
model, and it still focuses primarily on pathology. The
psychiatric profession’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorders, which orients the work of most ther-
apists, clinics, and health care providers, is a comprehen-
sive listing of hundreds of psychological problems and
diseases. Categorizing problems helps us study them and
then, it is hoped, cure them in the most scientific and
economically efficient way. But often we give so much
attention to our protective layers of fear, depression, con-
fusion, and aggression that we forget who we really are.
As a teacher, I see this all the time. When a middle-
aged man named Marty came to see me after a year of
painful separation and divorce, he was caught in the re-
petitive cycles of unworthiness and shame that he had
carried since childhood. He believed there was some-
thing terribly wrong with him. He had forgotten his
original goodness. When a young woman, Jan, came
to Buddhist practice after a long struggle with anxiety
and depression, she had a hard time letting go of her
self-image as a broken and damaged person. For years
she had seen herself only through her diagnosis and the
various medications that had failed to control it.
As psychology becomes more pharmacologically
oriented, this medical model is reinforced. Today, most
of the millions of adults seeking mental health support
are quickly put on medication. Even more troubling,
hundreds of thousands of children are being prescribed
powerful psychiatric drugs for conditions ranging from
ADHD to the newly popular diagnosis of childhood
bipolar disorder. While these medications may be ap-
propriate, even lifesaving, in some cases laypeople and
professionals increasingly look for a pill as the answer
to human confusion and suffering. It need not be so.
INNER FREEDOM:
LIBERATION OF THE HEART
If we do not focus on human limits and pathology,
what is the alternative? It is the belief that human free-
dom is possible under any circumstances. Buddhist
teachings put it this way: “Just as the great oceans have
but one taste, the taste of salt, so do all of the teachings
of Buddha have but one taste, the taste of liberation.”
Psychologist Viktor Frankl was the sole member
of his family to survive the Nazi death camps. Nev-
ertheless, in spite of this suffering, he found a path to
healing. Frankl wrote, “We who lived in concentration
camps can remember the men who walked through
the huts comforting others, giving away their last
piece of bread. They may have been few in number,
but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be
taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human
freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of
circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
When we are lost in our worst crises and conflicts,
in the deepest states of fear and confusion, our pain
can seem endless. We can feel as if there is no exit, no
hope. Yet some hidden wisdom longs for freedom. “If
it were not possible to free the heart from entangle-
ment in unhealthy states,” says the Buddha, “I would
not teach you to do so. But just because it is possible to
DAMONBILLIAN
JULY 40-45.indd 44
JULY 40-45.indd 44
4/25/08 11:39:28 AM
4/25/08 11:39:28 AM